Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Pinch Me!!

Saturday, July 05: Thirty hours later my feet hit India soil at 12:35am on July 5. We were greeted with flowers but the best was that no one was missing luggage! A brief stop at the restroom was a jolt - a non-Western toilet. How nice it is to carry your own toilet paper. This left hand business is very strange!The hotel's welcome was also impressive. The service is impeccable. We were annointed with a red dot on our forhead - my first - as a traditional welcome. This is truly a 5 star hotel. My roommate and I finally settled in to sleep at 3am knowing that we had to attend our first seminar on the Indian Educational System at 2pm. The seminar was extremely interesting even in a fogged state. It is amazing that they have 21 official languages in India. The caste system is still a very real part of their life. The Fulbright Program then held a reception for us. I experimented cautiously with the food and enjoyed meeting my partner teacher. She is a lovely teacher of grade 11 physics at a local government school. The hotel bed is very appealing.

About Me

This blog will capture highlights of a five week DOE International Seminar in India on math and science teaching and student achievement. I will travel with fifteen other educators from around the country on Fulbright fellowships. After a two day orientation at the University of Texas in Austin we are off to Delhi and then Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Jaiur and Agra. The Taj Mahal is in Agra so the the best was saved for last !!